I'm biased, but any elk hunt is a good one, some better than others. This area has a lot of wilderness, but weather also moves elk to a couple of feedgrounds in the area later in the season. There is plenty of land outside the wilderness to hunt, but sometimes hunting pressure will push the elk back into the wilderness, and the outfitters have seen to it you can't hunt there without one of them holding your hand, or with a resident with a free guide permit. There aren't a lot of roads in this area, and access to the private land can be difficult to get, so I hope your friends already know where they're going to hunt. Perhaps they've been there before. I've seen elk on Fortification Mountain east of Fremont Lake, on Half Moon Mountain, near Meadow Lake, Burnt Lake, and Fayette Lake, all on national forest land.
I presume, like all folks from out of state who hunt where most of the white-tails are killed the first few days of the season, your friends are coming for opening day, and since the hunting season for the leftover licenses begins on Sept. 20, the bulls should be bugling, provided the archers haven't worked them so much they shut up. Later hunts depend on weather to allow tracking and moving elk lower in elevation, out of the wilderness.
Bring the rifle you shoot best, not the biggest caliber, and don't believe the B.S. about needing a magnum for elk. Anything from .25-06 to .30-06 works just fine. I've killed 40 with the .25-06, 7mm-08, .284, .30-06, and .308, none with a bullet over 150 grains. Of 100 elk killed by people who've hunted in elk camps with me, nobody has ever used a caliber larger than 7mm magnum, because we don't like the recoil, and shoot better when we're not flinching. One hunter who brought a 300 mag wounded and lost 4 elk in 3 years because he was flinchy and wouldn't admit it, but had to "get used to his rifle" every year. He is no longer invited.
And remember this license allows taking any elk. A mature cow weighs 450 pounds hog-dressed, same as a raghorn 4 or 5 point, a spike bull 350. The most successful elk hunters hunt legal elk, as the statewide success rate for elk is about 40 percent, and lower for those who hunt strictly bulls than those who hunt either sex or just cow elk. You might want to look up the success rate for this area and license type on the Wyoming Game and Fish Department website(harvest survey) to help you decide whether you're hunting bulls or elk.
